


Sugarplum

by Menirva



Category: Dark Knight Rises (2012), The Collection, The Collector (2009)
Genre: Angst, Arkin becoming Barsad?, Character Death, Crossdressing, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Dubious Consent, F/M, Forced Feminization, Gore, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, M/M, Non Consensual, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Psychological Torture, Psychological Trauma, This is Gf's fault, Torture, i am so so sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-09
Updated: 2013-01-15
Packaged: 2017-11-24 06:01:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 8
Words: 19,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/631223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Menirva/pseuds/Menirva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for TDKR Kinkmeme prompt.</p>
<p>Prompt- TDKR characters in the universe of The Collection, or TDKR universe with the plot of The Collection happening in AU, whichever floats your boat better.</p>
<p>Character breakdown:<br/>Barsad- Arkin an ex-convict who nearly escaped the Collector.<br/>John Blake-As Abby, the pretty little made-up doll of a special collection item that is hidden inside the abandoned hotel and "liked" by the Collector.<br/>Talia Al Ghul-As Elena, the most recent capture of the Collector.<br/>Ra's Al Ghul- As Elena's father.<br/>Bruce- As Lucello, a close friend to Elena's family and determined to get Elena back safe no matter what the cost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a pretty twisted fic guys, just a heads up. The Collection films are very dark and it takes place Before, during, and after them. However, I tried to give it a moderately happy ending. If you haven't watched the films here is a basic breakdown.
> 
> The Collector is a man who breaks into homes, offices, clubs, anywhere and sets up traps to kill them (Think bear traps, things rigged to explode, burn, slice/dice). He kills everyone in the place he sets up except for a lone survivor which he then transports back to his lair in a wooden trunk to become part of his collection. They're the most unlucky ones. When he goes to a new site he takes his latest collector's piece with him.
> 
> The original prompt had Bane as the Collector and guys, I couldn't. I just couldn't make Bane that irredeemably evil, so the Collector is still the Collector (though you're welcome to picture him as Bane if you wish.) 
> 
> (PS. Girlfriend prompted this and all of it is entirely her fault.)

“Shh, you’re going to wake them up,” John whispered, and smiled a little when Selina giggled and bumped into a table end. It wasn’t a big deal. His parents loved Selina, trouble maker though she may be. She was the one who had made HIM shape up, had convinced him to go back to school even when she’d wanted to drop out of the university herself.

“Come here, handsome.” She crooked her finger at him.

He smirked and pressed his forehead against hers when her hands gripped onto his jeans and tugged him close. She smelled so good, and he growled playfully when her thigh rubbed up against his crotch.

Quick, messy kisses meant red lipstick smeared over his lips, across his cheek. He hated the taste of lipstick, but he didn’t mind for her, especially when he knew he’d be getting something damn nice for it. They fumbled their way down to the basement.

Selina screeched in protest when he stripped off her jacket and shoved her onto the bed jokingly.

When he went over to flick on the light switch, his foot slid into something slick and wet and skidded out from under him. He yelped and fell against the wall, jamming his hand against the corner of the switch.

“What the fuck?” Who had been in his room? His parents never went in here. They knew if he was down here he was with Selina or studying, and they didn’t want to discourage either, wanting ‘a college graduate for a son and some grandkids.’

“You ok?”

He nodded and knelt down to touch to pool of wet under him, sniffed it. Gasoline?

 

There was a strange screeching noise.

 

He flipped up the switch and Selina sat up on the bed quickly, catching the look in his eye and looking uncertain.

“Was that you?”

He shook his head, worried about his parents. He’d locked the door behind them, right? “I’m going to go check it out.”

“Not without me, you’re not,” she hissed, and gave him a look that plainly said he was an idiot for thinking she’d stay down here and leave him alone. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t grateful; he hated being alone anyway, and being alone with strange noises wasn’t exactly his dream come true. He’d just been trying to be the man, here.

They shared a nervous smile and crept up the stairs. Everything seemed quiet. He felt almost silly when he slipped into the kitchen anyway to get a knife. He stilled and put his hand up to stop Selina after he flicked his gaze downward.

There was a trunk there, heavy and wooden. It was open on its side, a thick trail of blood smearing outwards from it.

 

Like something dying had been dragged out of it.

 

“Oh shit, oh shit, John. We need to get out of here.” Selina grabbed his arm, and he followed dumbly when she pulled him towards the back door.

Neither of them saw the tripwire in time. Selina’s heel caught against it, and there was a metal clicking noise from above.

“LOOK OUT!” He tried to lunge forward to shove her out of the way.

She screamed when the hatchet swing down from the doorway, cleaved straight through her skull. Her eyes blinked in confusion, and her fingers twitched as her nervous system desperately tried to understand what had happened.

He sobbed and dropped down onto his knees beside her. He couldn’t touch her, though, couldn’t bring himself to do it as her eyes finally stopped moving and stared open and wet towards him.

“Jesus. Jesus.” He choked back another sob, startling when he heard footsteps, and ran, ran as fast as he could.

He soon found out that Selina’s death had been mercifully quick. There were other, much slower ways to die in the house of horrors his once-familiar home had been warped into. He found that out when he found his mother’s body.

He ran from the man in the mask who knew this new version of his own home better than he ever could. He screamed when he was grabbed up by his father, and they ran together.

Running didn’t do any damn good when there was only one way out.

 

Inside of that box.

 

He was covered in the blood of his family when he was tipped into it. When it snapped shut on him and he was trapped up into darkness, all of the walls pressing in tightly on him, he could smell the blood and decay soaked into the grain of the wood. He could hear the heavy breathing, felt himself being dragged off to the devil’s playground.

_______________

 

Pain lit up through Arkin’s nerves as he dug his nails deep into the skin of his arm. Too dark, it was too dark to see, but he could feel the blood dripping down his forearm, he could feel how much it hurt to add just one more ache to his body, how he hurt everywhere. His hand throbbed hotly where the Collector had slammed it repeatedly with the trunk’s lid. He wasn’t sure if it was broken or not.

It was fucking dark. He couldn’t see himself, he couldn’t see even a speck of light. He slammed into the sides of the trunk on a hard turn and felt sharpness in his ribs; cracked? Broken?

He scraped another mark into his arm. One mark for every hundred count. He wasn’t going to let himself get lost wherever this fucker was taking him, he’d know how to get out of it.

His mind flashed to that man, Larry Morton, in his box, all collected up and bleeding pure misery, just like he was all collected up now.

 

_“He always takes one.”_

 

Takes them where?

 

They went over a bump. Another mark went into his arm.

Count to one hundred, another mark.

 

Stop.

 

The creaking of brakes jolted him, made him realize he’d started to drift and made him refocus on his pitch black surroundings. Only scent and hearing were available for him, and all he could smell was blood. There was just so much blood, and only some of it was his.

His heart was racing the longer he couldn’t see, the longer he was crushed into that tiny trunk like it was his tomb. He was running out of air. He was running out of energy. He was running out of sanity.

 

He sat.

 

And sat.

 

And screamed.

 

Something sharp jabbed through a weaker part of the trunk’s walls. It scraped and squeaked past the wood, a needle that slid deep into the meat of his thigh. He cursed and twisted in his confines. There was no way to avoid it. He shouldn’t have screamed. He felt hoarse and like he didn’t have much life in him left. He needed all of the energy he could get.

How long had he been in the box? It had to have been at least a day, judging from the way his arm had crusted and scabbed over twice. He had picked it open each time he felt the wounds closing, fresh pain he didn’t want and more blood he couldn’t afford to give, not understanding why he was bothering. It was something to hold onto, maybe, something to let him hope he could get out of here.

He had to get out of here.

Whatever was in the needle burned when it plunged into his body, coursed through his bloodstream. His brain felt like it was trying to explode out of his head, and he gagged over the waves of nausea that followed, but not even bile was coming up at that point.

He was moving. The entire trunk lifted onto a dolly, and he was wheeled out like nothing more than a package, a delivery. He wasn’t even human. He wasn’t even an animal to this man. He was a box of scraps to play with.

He felt too sick. The box was too much, he couldn’t breathe anymore. He sucked in quick, shuddering breaths, wondering if he was finally going into shock, if whatever was in his blood now was killing him. If he’d lived through that house just to be poisoned and die in that tiny crate.

He blacked out.

 

Tap.

 

Tap. Tap.

 

Tap.

He groaned at the light vibration against his ear, the light, hesitant rap of knuckles on wood. He felt feverish and hot, sick and wrong still inside from whatever was in his blood.

“H-hello?” It was a soft, wavery whisper, and it made him snap to attention as much as his body would let him. It was the first word he had heard since he’d been here. He’d heard other noises, screams, pleads of pure gibberish, soft hissing shushing noises and death rattles, but no words.

“Who’s out there? Who the fuck is out there?”

“M-my name’s Johnna. I’m going to let you ooouuut now… but you have to be good or we can’t play. You’ll lose, and you’ll have to go away.” It was a tiny, childish voice, almost sing-songy, but something felt off about it.

How was there a child here? Did he really collect children? Thank God he’d gone back into that house for Hannah. He couldn’t have lived with himself knowing he’d let a little girl fall into this monster’s hands. It’s why he’d gone back to begin with, he couldn’t get her family out of his mind, gutted, dismembered. He wasn’t a good guy, but he couldn’t just stand back and let that happen.

He licked his dry tongue out over even dryer lips. No water for at least a day. If he didn’t get some soon, he wouldn’t be making it much longer.

“Ok. Ok.” He just needed to get out of this box. He didn’t hear the Collector out there. He didn’t understand what was going on, and his blood still felt like it was on fire. It made the closed-up air in the box even worse. He’d do almost anything to get out, at this point.

 

He could hear the faint sound of hands clapping, the snap of metal latches clicking open.

 

Light. So bright after so long in that dark that it seared into his eyes and he was blind again in an instant.

 

He’d planned to rush whoever was out there, if there was anyone but the little girl he was hearing, but when he collapsed out of the trunk the sudden freedom of motion and blood rushing back into his limbs paralyzed him, made him dry heave and press his face to the ground, grit his teeth.

“Oh… you’re not ready.” The voice sounded vaguely disappointed, and then brightened. “That’s ok! Let me show you my things, and we’ll wait.”

Ready for what? His throat had given up on words, they gagged in it, too dry, too much screaming.

The arms that grabbed him were too strong for the little girl’s lisp he could hear right by his ear. He scrambled at the floor, toes scraping against carpet, and then he was crashing against a cot, forcing himself to stay upright on it and gasping just from the effort of that.

His vision was still blurred out against the edges, one of his eyes felt nearly swollen shut, but they were adjusting.

 

It wasn’t a little girl at all.

 

A boy was there—a man?—blinking down at him, eyelashes fluttering coquettishly. Makeup was caked onto his face to the point where it looked painted on like a doll’s, but it brought out his soft brown eyes, made his lips pout, his lashes accentuated; a silky cream slip was wrapped around his slender frame, and his curls framed his face, nearly touching his shoulders. He might not have even realized it was a boy, save for the gauziness of the slip and the way it clung to his body betraying some features that wouldn’t be found on a girl.

 

He had to be older than he looked. He was taller than him, looked like he could be an adult, but the way he held himself, his body, his face, he looked doll-like, fragile, all limbs, like a baby doe.

“Would you like some tea?”

He stared, nodded numbly, surprised when a tiny plastic tea cup was held to his lips. He drank down the rusty water inside greedily as the boy gave him a little smile and tipped the cup. How long ago had it been since he’d had a tea party with an actual little girl? He thought of the tea party he had had with Hannah. Was Hannah still alive? She’d been with the police, she’d been safe.

 

He thought he’d been safe in that ambulance until it had crashed.

 

No. She had to be. She’d been through so much. He’d seen her snapped up by an officer. The Collector wouldn’t have had time to go after both of them. She was safe.

The boy… Johnna? Hummed tunelessly and refilled the cup from a little pot. He gulped it down. His stomach cramped at the suddenness of it and he panted, took slow breaths and willed himself not to vomit up the water his dehydrated body desperately needed.

Johnna chattered, soft, excited whispers as he held up little things, a broken doll, a scrap of cloth, a thimble, explaining how they were gifts and how special they were. Each thing was held in front of his face with long, graceful fingers. The nails there were kept neatly long, perfectly shaped but painted with gobs of sparkly paint. Everything about this boy screamed that he was broken, from his posture to his clothes and paint, to the excited breathless tone and the sickly sweet breath that ghosted across his face. It made his heart twist. It made him wonder how long he’d been there, to be completely unmade, made him wonder what this boy had been before.

 

It made him wonder how long he’d be there.

 

“Stop,” he grated out harshly, and then felt bad at the way Johnna’s face flinched. He recovered quickly, though, trained, trained to handle sadistic moods. He fixed him with a shy smile.

 

“Are you ready to play?”


	2. Chapter 2

He didn’t understand until her—his, his nimble fingers skimmed over the crotch of his pants, touched over his cock which suddenly felt impossibly hard, filled with blood he just didn’t have to spare at the moment. He sprang up to stand, only to nearly pass out, falling back down roughly. The cot creaked in protest at the sudden weight.

Johnna scooted up beside him, pressed up tight, and he could smell layers of dirt and perfume on him. His hands felt strong when they squeezed his arm, stronger than someone who sounded that little and soft and lisping had any right to. “Shh… we have to play. Or daddy will be so angry.” It was a tiny whisper, and nails bit into his arm, pulling just slightly, and he let his eyes scan the room.

Up on the wall, a doll’s head stared back at him. He knew a security camera when he saw one.

He was feeling it more now, and he knew now what sort of things had been jabbed into him because his eyes were swimming and his cock was up and ready. The fucker, the sick fucker; he felt disgusted with his own body and the fact that he had taken control of it. Johnna’s hands went to it again, pressed against it thoughtfully through his pants and he cooed softly.

“You’re ready.” He placed a sloppy kiss to his cheek, smeared it with lipstick before he shimmied off the bed.

Arkin stared as he slowly drew up his slip, exposing how unnaturally lean he really was. He could see ribs poking out, like he was starved, his cock was soft against his leg but his cheeks and neck were flushed. Johnna sighed and lay back on the cot and kept his slip up, murmured contently as he spread his thighs as much as the slender frame of the cot allowed and ran his fingers down his stomach.

Arkin felt like throwing up again when he saw all of the bruises, the cuts and scrapes and hand prints that mottled the boy’s thighs, his ass, the raw redness and smears of dried blood around his hole. He had been used, and he didn’t question for an instant who had done the using.

He couldn’t do this. He’d never fucking be hard over this if it weren’t for those drugs.

Thank God he’d gotten Hannah out.

“Come on, you have to play.” Johnna stuck his bottom lip out in concentration and reached down, spread himself a little with his fingers. “I’m ready. I’m always ready.”

He shook his head, looked around the room for a way out. There was a door, but that didn’t mean he could just walk out. This was the spider’s lair. He knew how many traps had to be out there, waiting.

“You have to!” Johnna’s tone suddenly became higher, desperate. “I have to be a good girl!”

“I don’t fucking want to!” he snapped, running his hands through his hair. He needed to be able to think, but the drugs were robbing his mind of his thoughts.

“YOU’LL KILL US, YOU’LL KILL US!” he screeched suddenly, and thick tears rolled down his cheeks. “I WANT TO WIN!”

“Shh, fuck, fuck, be quiet.” He lunged over him and snapped his hand over his mouth. “Just be quiet.”

His fingers were taken in and sucked voraciously as Johnna’s eyelids hooded and he hummed contently. It made the blood rush out of his head and straight down to his cock. He was so hard it felt like he was going to burst out of his pants. He’d never felt this fucking hard before, God, it was sick.

Johnna hooked his legs around him and gurgled contently around his fingers for a moment before pulling back, licking over them wetly, placing sucking kisses to the tips.

“You have to; you have to play or we’ll diiieee.” It was sung out playfully, and his lips cracked into a painted grin like it was all such a funny joke.

Suddenly he wanted to laugh, too, because it was true, what a fucking funny joke. He was a survivor, that’s what he did, he made it through a fucked-up childhood, he made it through prison, he made it through that house, and he’d heard things in that box, heard all of those screams, all of the begging, all of the begging suddenly cut off by death gurgles, screams, and he wondered if that’s what happened when you didn’t listen. He didn’t want to die like that. Survivor or not, he wasn’t so sure he wanted to live anymore, but to die like THAT, like how he’d heard… and Johnna was cooing at him softly, wrapping his long slender arms around his neck and smiling.

“Come on, come on, let’s play. Play with me,” he pleaded softly. “It’s ok, it’s ok.”

He couldn’t die like that, and he couldn’t risk his own behavior killing this broken boy under him, either. That he was even alive at all was a fucking twisted miracle. He had to have that same gunning instinct to press on, to live, and he wasn’t going to be the one to take it from him.

He pulled his spit-wet fingers away, shoved his pants down to his thighs and tried to rub the wet onto his cock but Johnna shook his head frantically and he froze.

“No, no, no,” he babbled softly. “I’mma good girl, I’m not spoiled like that, I’m not. No spoiling, no spoiling!”

“Shh, Shh ok, ok, just stop.” He took hold of himself, tried to thumb some spit over his tip anyway. This was going to hurt. He hadn’t done anything like this, but it didn’t take a fucking genius to know that Johnna wasn’t getting used for her own pleasure.

Johnna’s mouth dropped open and he sobbed in pain when he pushed in. Arkin tried, he tried to be as careful as he could, but it was mostly dry and Johnna mewled under him. His fingernails pressed into his skin, but they never scratched or scraped, not even a tiny bit, it was trained out of him.

“Please, please, I’m good!” He sniffled and shook and Akrin’s heart was twisting up inside of him, his stomach was in knots to be the one doing this to him. The rest of him was on fire, though.

“Y-yeah, you’re good,” he tried. He smoothed a hand over his cheek and the effect was instantaneous—the too-tight clench around him loosened. Johnna’s eyelids lowered and he hummed contently, let out little gasps and snapped his hips up, driving him in deeper. It had to hurt, the friction of it alone was hurting HIM, but he made soft, happy noises that couldn’t be real but were driving him insane with how the drugs were boiling his brain.

It was slicker now. He had to be bleeding, torn open , but his movements didn’t stop, he rolled his hips and his head tossed blissfully on the cot. Arkin couldn’t tell if it was genuine or an act, but surely all of that couldn’t be fake, could it? He couldn’t fake how his cock was starting to swell against his thigh, to leak. How long had he been here to be behaving like that? That his body had started to accept such brutality as a pleasure?

Arkin just wanted to be done. He rocked with him, each push pulled a little mewl of encouragement from the writhing form under him and it made his stomach feel sicker, his head hotter. Johnna twisted under him suddenly when he changed his angle and his lidded eyes flew open, painted lips pursed into a little ‘o’ of surprise.

“O-oh God.” His voice slipped just an octave lower, and Arkin suddenly had a glimpse of who this broken doll under him might have once been. Then it was gone, crushed back by soft lisping words and babbling, cooing.

“Th-that’s good, you’re hitting the good spot way up inside.” He felt like he should be fucking crying over this. There was no way this was what this kid really wanted. He was just too broken to know it, too broken to know that he was being hurt, raped, and that Arkin was doing it, doing it to keep them both alive, but he was still the one doing it, listening to him coo and mouth against the shell of his ear. It was filthy there, matted with hair, blood, sweat, but Johnna didn’t mind, he licked it clean and sighed.

“So, so, SO good. You play good, almost as good as daddy.”

He gagged at that. Johnna giggled. His hips were frantic now and he shook his head.

“O-Oh no, can’t, can’t, can’t!” Arkin watched as he licked over his lips, smeared the lipstick all along his face before his teeth snapped down into his bottom lip, drawing blood. “Can’t, can’t, can’t. I’m a good girl, good girl, good girl.” He chanted it out softly and closed his eyes, shuddering.

Arkin was beyond words at that point, throat dry again, but he made a questioning noise and Johnna’s eyes snapped up to him attentively as he sucked in gasps of air. “C-can’t come. Good girls don’t come. Good girls never come.” He made his voice sterner, like he was mimicking someone.

He grunted, thrust faster, couldn’t keep his eyes off Johnna at that point. It was a morbid fascination the way his hips twisted, the way he was torn between thrusting up faster and how he clung all around him. His cock was leaking against his belly, and he had the fleeting thought of wondering how long the boy had been used like this and denied and, if he was really affected like he acted, how much it had to ache to be denied each time.

He came finally, felt something breaking inside of him at the way Johnna keened, cried softly and whimpered, hips snapping up with need as he chanted, “Good girls don’t, I’mma good girl, I’mma good girl,” over and over again as his body quivered. His skin glistened with sweat, and Arkin could see the blood between his legs, on his cock, when he pulled out. Johnna just sighed, kept his arms wrapped around him.

“Was I a good girl?” It was asked desperately, and Arkin couldn’t take that from whatever was left of this broken boy under him.

“You were perfect, sugarplum.” He felt the body under him nearly swoon at the praise, and he put a hand to his cheek, feeling sweat, and makeup, and tears.

“We have to go back into our place now.” Johnna kissed his fingers.

“Pl—” He shook his head. “Not getting back into that box.”

“You HAVE to. He’ll be so cross.” He stood, slid his slip back down his now sweaty, still glowing skin, and knelt down, crawled over to the box Arkin now noticed in the corner. He slipped into it carefully, seeming to know exactly where to put his limbs as his soft brown eyes peeked out once more. “If you’re good, maybe you can come play again.” It was whispered hopefully before a little tug snapped the box shut and Arkin was there alone.

There was some food and half-eaten bits of candy on the table beside the cot. He wasn’t sure he trusted any of it. It looked half rotted, but he tore the crusts off of a sandwich and shoved it into his mouth, guzzled down the rusty water from Johnna’s little tea pot and shoved some candy into his pocket in case he lived to need it later.

Johnna was humming inside of his trunk, a soft, patient little hum.

He tried to stand and he couldn’t, the drugs were still swimming in his system.

He could try to crawl over to the door and never make it out, not with him watching, or he could crawl into that fucking box and try, try to be good and bide his time until a better chance came.

It was maybe the hardest thing he’d ever had to do, to slip into that box. He felt a sob ripped out of his lungs as he forced his legs in. His arms shook when he pulled the little latch, and he screamed when it snapped shut.


	3. Chapter 3

Every day. It was every day. Or maybe it only felt like a day went by each time. Maybe it was longer, maybe he was in that box a week each time, maybe it was a year, maybe it was an hour. There was just no way to know.

He’d been wheeled in there, though, and he felt disgusted each time by how relieved he felt, that he was going there instead of one of the other places he’d heard crates being wheeled off to and never come back. He could hear her soft humming each time and he’d know it was her.  He’d long ago stopped thinking in terms of “he,” he’d tried to use a male pronoun on her once and she’d burst into tears.

Her soft hum would drift through his trunk and he’d know that he wasn’t going to go through what the others were, the ones who didn’t listen. He saw them sometimes, little glimpses when the corner of his trunk had cracked ever so slightly, tongueless, faceless, mindless, limbless, any combination of the above. He’d thought Johnna was broken. Johnna was healthy and whole by comparison. He was fucking grateful that he’d heeded her.

He got a needle jab when he went. Every time, he crawled on shaking limbs to her cot. She would smile, pleased to see him, and hold a teacup up to his lips, have him sip, talk to him until he was ready to play. Every time she wrapped her arms and legs around him, stroked his hair, whispered, comforted him when he should be the one comforting her for the pain he was putting her through. She never seemed to mind, though, always said she wanted it and was ready, was always hard by the end of it.

_“Daddy likes me, you know?” she hummed and rocked her hips smoothly. “I’m his favvooorrite.”_

_“He likes you, too. He likes to watch us.”_

_“He’s teaching me to be so good, such a good girl. Aren’t I a good girl?”_

Then the needles stopped and he went anyway. It was a test; Johnna whispered it in his ear, begged him to play.

“Please, please, you’re my favorite friend. I don’t want you to go away.”

He took her without a fuss. It just took a lot longer to get hard, and a hell of a lot longer to come, but it was amazing what the body could do to survive. He stroked her hair when they were done, held her as long as he dared each time before they crawled back into their boxes. Johnna liked to kiss his cheek and whisper a “goodnight Mr. Arkin” before she snapped her lid closed and hummed.

He didn’t know if it really happened every day. He just knew that it had happened fourteen times. He didn’t need the drugs anymore. He’d learned to get hard even when he’d been kept in the box, even when he could hear HIM with her, how she screamed and squealed and he snarled like an animal. He wouldn’t look. He’d close his eyes tightly and refused to look through the little crack in the trunk.

He NEVER wanted to see what it looked like. He had to listen, though, listen to her screeches and pleads and promises to always be his good little girl, the whining soft hiccup of “Daddy, please!” and he always felt even sicker by the time he was gone and she let him out. She would bleed between her legs and ask him for play time anyway. It was just another test, and he passed, entered her as gently as he could, spilled into the mess of come the monster had already left in her.

She never came. She was too much of a good girl for that, but she was always hard and Arkin always felt guilty about it when he slipped out of her and she would shake, try to regain control of her body. He always told her how good she was after that and she beamed every time, like his praise meant the world to her.

Now was number fifteen and she looked sad, even when he pushed into her just how she wanted. He rocked slowly, kissed her forehead, something that always made her smile, but she looked sadder still. He couldn’t ask what was wrong, there were so many things wrong that it was a ridiculous question.

Her arms were suddenly especially tight around him. “He’s going to take you to a party tonight.” It was a barely a whisper, like she was scared to tell him but being so brave and doing it anyway. “He told me. A special party, with dancing, but I don’t want you to go.”

His breath caught and she whimpered when he accidentally thrust too hard in his surprise. He’d get taken out, like Larry. The collector brought his last victim to his newest killing ground, that was what had happened to Larry when he found in him that trunk. Now was his chance. Here, it was his playground and you played by his rules, but he was going to get out of here.

But Johnna would be here still. He watched as her soft eyes stared up into his. They were red, like she’d been crying, and she didn’t cry anymore. She’d informed him, on time number three, that good girls didn’t cry so she wouldn’t.

“Shh, it’s ok, sugarplum.” He kissed her forehead again and couldn’t help but whisper little endearments against her ear, things that made her look blissful when she was in a better mood. She wrapped around him tighter.

“I don’t want you to!” She hiccupped, and he rubbed over her gaunt stomach, her too-prominent ribs, and patted her side.

“It’s going to be ok, just hold still for me, ok?” She whined but nodded, and when he managed to finish he held her in his lap, reached into his pocket. His pants were grubby and completely wrecked now. He knew he had blood all over him, some had been dripped into the box for no reason, some had come from himself, his scabs that he kept fresh, just in case, some from Johnna and how she bled. His fingers closed around the hard rock there.

The fucker hadn’t touched it; apparently a diamond was boring to him. He pushed it into Johnna’s hands and watched as her face lit up, how she twisted it around in the lamplight and gasped at the shine.

“It sparkles! Is it a gift?”

“It is. You hold onto it until I see you again, ok?”

Johnna was hugging him tight, tighter than those slender arms had any right to. She whispered into his ear. “You’re my favorite. If I could pick any daddy it would be you.”

The words broke his heart. He didn’t want to leave her all alone, but he had to get out of there. He had the marks on his arms. He could get out of here, send help for her. He patted her back, gave her another kiss on the forehead and climbed into his box.

He listened to her hum as he was wheeled away.

_______________

He could hear people. The music was so loud, and he could hear the din of tons of people, laughing, partying. He’d been placed there hours ago, heard a knife scrape against the wood of the trunk and a low “Shhhhh” before he’d been left in there.

No one came for him, though.

He’d heard something being set up in the room, clicks and scrapes. It was no doubt a trap to kill the poor bastard that opened the trunk. He’d try to help, but he was so tired. It was hotter in this place than he was used to now, and the blood and sweat on him was running into his eyes, blinding him.

Finally, he heard a door open. He slammed his palm against the flat of the trunk, willing them to open it.

When he fell out of that trunk and light hit his face, he was looking up into the eyes of a startled young woman.

“GET DOWN!”

He grabbed her, heard the snap and deadly whoosh of a thick metal rod nearly pierce right through her before he pulled her to the ground. She screamed and shoved at him.

“You’ve gotta help me!” He grasped at her desperately.

She ran.

Fuck. It wasn’t like he could blame her. He’d have probably run before, too, but she’d probably just run off to her death. She left a bracelet, though, and he used it to pick the chains that had been snapped around his ankles before this special visit.

He made it to the window, saw all of the bodies and blood soaked into the floor. Fuck, the Collector had to be having a field day out there.

He didn’t expect to see the girl again. He was surprised she’d made it. They stared at each other for a moment. He could see that same survivor’s will in her eyes that he knew was in his own, in Johnna’s. He started to hold his hand up to get her to come with him. A shadow passed behind her.

“LOOK OUT!”

Too late. The Collector snapped her up. His body jolted, she was alive, but he was in no fucking shape to go rescue her.

He always took one. She looked like she was the only one left. He could get her help when he sent the police for Johnna. He looked back at the window, hefted up the nearest corpse he could find and used it to somewhat brace the blow of crashing through glass, slamming into the roof of a car.

It only helped so much, and he cried out in agony when he felt the bone in his forearm snap.

He’d made it, though. He could hear sirens in the distance.

The hospital was a blur. He barely remembered his ex-wife being there. She felt like a ghost, but it had felt good to see her all the same, to feel her offering a bit of comfort to him. He still loved her, loved their girl, but they didn’t feel like a part of him anymore, not the same way. They felt like something from his past. When he saw the thinly-veiled threat attached to the anonymous flowers,

_“For the collection,”_

he hadn’t hesitated to tell her to leave town and not look back. It was funny how things changed. This had all started because he didn’t want them to go.

Bruce had come to him in the night. Showed him a picture of that young woman with the survivor’s eyes, the daughter of his employer. Her name was Talia. Bruce wanted her out, and he promised to kill the bastard when he did it, make him suffer.

His lips tightened into a grim smile.

“I’m in.”

He gave them all of the information he could as quickly as possible, even while his arm still throbbed in agony in its cast and he still felt like he was trapped and screaming every time he blinked his eyes shut. He was doing this to get the bastard, and he was doing this for Johnna. He’d make it. He told them he’d lead them to the lair, but there was no way he was going inside. They agreed, promised.

Betrayal wasn’t a knife to the back. It was a gun, apparently, when one of Bruce’s men trained theirs one him and they tried to make him go back inside that hell.

“I’m NOT going back in there,” he whispered out desperately. He was too scared, and he didn’t give a fuck who knew it. They didn’t understand. He’d gotten OUT, escaped from that fucking bloodbath of a nightclub, gotten out of that hell on earth, and now they wanted him to put himself back in there. They might as well have wanted him to snap himself back into his trunk.

He couldn’t go in there. What if she was dead? This wasn’t the plan.

He’d agreed to this so they’d get her out, too. He’d pulled Bruce aside, talked to him privately, told him he’d do everything short of going in there if he promised to keep an eye out for Johnna, too.

He couldn’t go back into that hell just to find her dead. Everything in his old life felt like it wasn’t a part of him anymore. When he’d kissed his ex-wife, it had been sweet, almost wonderful, but she wasn’t like him. She couldn’t understand hell and she wasn’t a survivor. So he sent her away so she’d be safe.

Johnna was a survivor, she had to be alive. He almost let them put a bullet into his head before he let them force him back inside of there, but he couldn’t, he was a survivor, too.

Everything went wrong. How could it not? They were in his playground again, his sandbox, his rules. They were getting picked to pieces and now he could see clearly all of those things that he’d heard screaming, all of those mindless creatures he’d created with drugs and tortured surgeries. He could see what he’d avoided becoming by being good, by behaving.

The men were no better. They acted like he was the enemy when they'd forced HIM to come. He ran from them. He was being hunted on all sides, and he was looking for Johnna and now Talia, too. He couldn’t leave her behind, either, now. He knew what happened here, and he’d do what he could for her, as well. He had to, he hadn’t wanted to go back here, but now the men her father had hired had proven to be useless and he was alone hunting for them both.

He found Johnna.


	4. Chapter 4

Talia had found her, locked up in her box. It had only been a day, but she looked at him with almost blank eyes when he wrapped an arm around her. She looked so skittish, trembling and looking around uncertainly. He was just proud she’d gone out of her room.  
  
“No, no, he’s CRAZY,” Talia argued when Arkin went over to her.  
  
“We’re all a little fucking crazy,” he snapped at her, and brushed the hair out of Johnna’s eyes. “I’ve got you, sugarplum.”  
  
Her eyes lit up with recognition, and he almost smiled when she wrapped around him.  
  
“Foouuund you,” she murmured, and buried her face into his shoulder.  
  
“You did,” he agreed, and they went to where Talia had seen a possible way to get out.  
  
The opening was too small for anyone to fit through, but they could see two figures outside, homeless men warming their hands over a fire barrel. While he and Bruce argued over using the gun, Johnna kept pressed up close. He finally convinced Bruce to trust him, to hand over the weapon and let him use the last two bullets to draw attention to the abandoned hotel. Johnna peeked over his shoulder while he took careful aim out of the small window and shot one of the bums, feeling a little bad, but desperate times…  
  
“Sorry, dude!”  
  
He heard a soft giggle against his shoulder.  
  
He felt relief when the sirens wailed off in the distance. The police were here, he just had to line up his next shot. When it ricocheted off the police car, alerting them all to a gunman inside of the abandoned hotel, he finally let himself breathe. They might actually get out of here.  
  
He startled when Johnna suddenly flung herself away from his side and scrambled towards the door, locking it.  
  
“Na-ah! Na-ah! Cheating! I’m going to win and you’re all going to die!”  
  
“Johnna!”  
  
“I told you he was fucking crazy!” Talia shouted while Johnna stared up into the camera and screeched. Arkin swore. It wasn’t her fucking fault. She was just scared, scared because they might actually get out. She didn’t understand, she was too scared and broken to even consider it.  
  
“Johnna!” He made himself sound as angry as possible. “You stop that right now! You’re being a very bad girl!”  
  
She recoiled as if he’d struck her, but he didn’t have time to feel guilty. He grabbed her arms and yanked her close. “You STOP that. You understand me?”   
  
She whimpered, tears springing up.  
  
“I SAID, do you understand me?” He shook her a little, and something in her snapped. Her face twisted, no, his face twisted into anger.  
  
“FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU!” he snarled, for that wasn’t the voice of a little girl anymore. This was a male’s voice, an enraged young man, and he swung at him. Arkin ducked and wrapped his good arm around him.  
  
“Johnna, Johnna…”  
  
“IT’S JOHN! MY FUCKING NAME IS JOHN!”   
  
“Shhh, John.” They didn’t have time for this. John was crumpling, though, falling against him. The sudden weight made them shift and he felt his foot graze past a collection of nails on the floor. They'd set off one of the Collector’s thousands of traps.   
  
He heard creaking and shouted, yanked John with him so that they tumbled down onto the floor as the trap box, filled with razorblades, sprang out in front of them, narrowly missing swallowing them both whole. John grabbed onto him, his nails dug deeply into his arms. Johnna never scratched, but John wasn’t so forgiving.  
  
“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!”  
  
“Shh—” He tried to put a hand into his hair, but the door was opening, he was coming, there were gunshots and the sounds of snarls filled the air.

Bruce was left behind, but they moved on. Bruce had known the score. He just wanted Talia safe.

John slipped back into Johnna, then John again, back and forth as they ran. Arkin dealt with it as well as he could as they kept moving. While he tried to stay alive. While they all just tried to keep each other alive as much as they could. Talia saved them, John saved them, Johnna saved them, he saved them. It was back and forth, one of them catching a trap, figuring out how to disarm something, getting them through to the next room, the next horror.  
  
It had to end sometime, and they wound up not catching the trap, locked up in a cage together. The Collector taunted them wordlessly, held up his lighter. He was a little too familiar with his tricks. He was going to burn the whole place down with them in it, trapped in this cage. They couldn’t get to the latch, not without doing something desperate.

He screamed in pain when Talia rebroke his arm. Johnna held his good hand in an iron grip while he forced his fractured bones to bend further so he could reach the latch, free them, and try to find a way out.

 They were in a room Arkin had seen before, full of macabre glass aquariums of skeletons, of stitched together body parts. He found them, and there was no place to run anymore. So they fought, but they were weak, their bodies only had so much fight in them.

It was Bruce that saved them, miraculously showing back up only to die in front of them, his final call to Arkin to kill the son of a bitch. Between them, it was enough to distract him, enough so that he and John could take him on together, take him down while Talia tried to open the doors for them before they died in the inferno the Collector had created.  
  
Two against one was still an unfair fight when they’d been through so much, when there was smoke in the air and fire all around them, when his arm was killing him, when he’d been stabbed through the face with a knife, when John kept becoming Johnna. She didn’t understand why they were hurting Daddy and she cried.  
  
Then he was down, finally; there was no time to gloat, though. Fire was everywhere. It was closing in on them. He couldn’t stop punching him, though. John was with him, holding the fucker’s shoulders down as Arkin slammed his good hand into his face again and again. It felt good. It was so good to feel that bone crunching under his fist.  
  
They lifted him together, threw him down the dummy shaft and into the pile of gasoline-soaked bodies below. John ripped off a piece of the slip he was still wearing and lit it with the flames licking at the walls. They tossed it down onto him together.  
  
They weren’t going to make it out.  
  
Talia was still at the doors. She'd managed to get someone’s attention, they were opening, but he and John were surrounded by the flames now, and there was no way past them.  
  
She stared back at them when the flames circled, swamped in around them and pulled the oxygen out of the air. They were done. They’d had a good run. At least they had taken him out with them; at least Talia was going to make it. John looked at him grimly, then his face softened and it was Johnna, crying and hugging him tightly as they crouched down together and he cradled the back of her head.  
  
He heard a yell and looked up at Talia, saw her take up the heavy curtain rod. It had to be burning her hands, burning them right up when she picked it up out of the fire, but she grit her teeth. She was a survivor, too, and none of them were going to leave another behind, not again. She swung the heavy rod into the glass display cases filled with stitched-up body parts and water. The water crashed around them, cooled the flames just enough, and Talia ran to them.   
  
They left that hell together.  
  
In the swarm of ambulances and sirens and lights, Johnna clung to his hand, shifted uncomfortably when a blanket went over her shoulders, then when they were left alone John was there again, glaring out at the crowd.  
  
“Do you have any idea how fucking long I’ve been down there? Not a single person, not a single person thought to look in a fucking abandoned hotel?” He scowled, and Talia glanced over at him in sympathy.  
  
“They’re idiots. I’m sorry I called you crazy.” Her hands were bandaged heavily. She needed to go to the hospital, but she refused to leave just yet. She touched the back of her wrapped hand to theirs.  
  
John smiled grimly. “I am fucking crazy.”  
  
Arkin snorted softly and he wrapped his good arm around him without thinking. He felt tense muscles and nearly pulled back until John leaned into him, gave him a look as if he was challenging him to dare take his arm back off of him.   
  
“I want to go see his body.”  
  
“Sounds like the best idea I’ve ever heard,” Arkin agreed. He slipped off with him while paramedics kept prodding at Talia.  
  
But all that was left was a mask.  
  
They stared down at it, smoldering inside of a slightly charred trunk. Johnna whimpered and nuzzled into his side.  
  
“Daddy’s going to find us. He’s going to be so, so cross.”  
  
Arkin shook his head, pulled her closer. Enough, there had been enough running. “No. I’m going to find him.”

 

“I said it’s John, Robin John Blake.” John grit his teeth, hunched his shoulders as he repeated his name for what had to be the fifth time to the paramedics. It was his turn for a more thorough look over, and Arkin didn’t know John well, but he could tell he was edgy. He had to get cleared by the medics, though, and Arkin was praying that he held up, that he didn’t flip-flop through his personalities. They kept pressuring him, though; Arkin could see how tightly his hands were clenched up, the barely held back rage.  
  
“I think the boy has been through more than enough, gentlemen,” Talia’s father, Mr. Al Ghul spoke up smoothly, an air of authority that had the medics backing down and John letting out a shaky breath. Arkin was relieved for him.  
  
Talia walked up to him, touched the back of his hand with her own. “You will take care of him?”  
  
At first he thought she meant the Collector, but no, she was watching John. She hadn’t seen the mask, and he wasn’t going to tell her about the fucker being alive. If he was going to come after any of them, it would be him first, and Arkin was going to be ready. He wouldn't drag her back into this.  
  
“I…” He should take John to get the help he needs, a home, a ward. He wasn’t ok, neither of them were ok, and he needed to find that fucker. John needed to be somewhere safe, somewhere with healthy people to talk to and that sure wasn’t him.  
  
But John also needed to not be alone. John was collected. That meant he was the lone survivor from whatever hellish trap that Collector had set up for him. That meant John was alone.  
  
He wasn’t going to leave John alone ever again.  
  
“Yeah. I’ll take care of him.”  
  
Talia nodded in satisfaction. “My father… he can take care of things… Make it so that only I survived tonight… You could have a fresh start, both of you.”  
  
A clean slate.  
  
He glanced over at Mr. Al Ghul as he talked to John. Saw him carefully take off his long coat and drape it over his shoulders. Arkin was grateful for the gesture with John still being bare-legged in the cold, only a slip and a blanket, but he resisted the urge to go rip John away from him when he saw how John hunched his shoulders more, ducked his head and suddenly looked around for him. He held his arm out a little, not surprised when Johnna was there and wrapping her arms around him, making a soft, lost sound.  
  
Mr. Al Ghul walked up to them slowly, his cane making his steps halting, but he was steady. He gave Arkin a slow nod. “Talia has spoken to you? It will be taken care of. You will lay low for a few weeks and then something will be worked out.” He pulled a card from his pocket and slid it into his hands along with a thick roll of bills.  
  
“Take some time, for both of you, then call me. I will not forget what you have done. I will make sure you start fresh on good footing.”  
  
They went to the hospital with them, and no one asked for their names. It was scary what influence could buy. His arm was put in another cast and it hurt like hell, but it would heal eventually. Talia stood by and watched while it was set, like she was guarding him. Johnna held his hand.  
  
John would barely let anyone touch him. Arkin couldn't blame him one bit. Any damage John had was well beyond repair, and Arkin couldn’t bring himself to push it. He got him to breathe some oxygen and let them check his lungs for smoke damage and considered it a win.  
  
Talia hugged them both before they left, whispered something in Johnna’s ear that got a giggle, and then they were offered a ride. He didn’t know where to tell them. He would never be checking into a hotel ever again.

In the end, they wound up at his ex-wife’s apartment. It was empty, and he was grateful she’d listened, had left for safer ground when he’d told her to. It meant she was safe. It meant his little girl was safe. He didn’t know what to do with John, Johnna, they were flipping back and forth so quickly it was making him dizzy, and they should probably have all been spending the night in that hospital, but Arkin couldn’t fathom doing that to either of them.  
  
John, John now, looked around, curious and apathetic at the same time. He didn’t have any belongings to toss down onto the couch; he only had the jacket Mr. Al Ghul had slipped onto his shoulders insistently. His legs were still bare, his feet in hospital booties. They both needed to clean up.  
  
“The shower’s down the hall. There should be towels.”   
  
He watched as John crouched down to pick up the bear Cindy had left behind. He hugged it to himself and shivered. “I had one like this, when I was a kid.” He closed his eyes and Arkin hurt for him.  
  
“John, how old are you?” He had no idea. He was prepared to deal with it if he was underage, but it would eat away at him even more, knowing what they did.”  
  
“I’m not a fucking kid,” John suddenly snapped and tossed the toy down. “I’m twenty-three.”  
  
He was relieved. “You look like you’re fucking sixteen.”  
  
That got a sharp, bitter laugh. “Yeah, I think that’s why he liked me so much.” He turned to look at him, to stare into his eyes, and Arkin could see all of that brokenness and anger staring at him. “If you think you’re gonna kill him without me, you’ve got another fucking thing coming.”  
  
Then he left to shower. Arkin found Johnna there, curled up under the cold spray an hour later, looking lost, brightening when she saw him.  
  
“I foounnddd you.”  
  
He couldn’t help but give her a little smile. “You did, but aren’t you cold?”  
  
She shook her head, but got out from under the spray anyway. He wrapped a towel around her, saw her face for the first time clean from makeup, tousled her dripping hair before he turned the hot on and ducked under the spray, trying to keep his cast out of it. She watched, but it didn’t bother him; they’d seen too much of each other for it to make him self-conscious, and he didn’t like the idea of sending her off.  
  
She was fiddling with the dirty, discarded slip. He could hear soft tearing noises.  
  
“What are you doing, Johnna, honey?”  
  
She stuck her tongue out in concentration. “I saved it.” A few more rips and a hidden pocket opened and out clattered the diamond he’d given her. She beamed at him proudly.   
  
“I kept it special for us.”  
  
He told her she was a clever girl and thanked her before he put it away carefully. If for some reason Mr. Al Ghul didn’t help take care of them, then this would be more than a healthy start for them to do it themselves.  
  
They curled up on the bed together. Johnna cooed over his cast, traced down it with her still sparkly nails. He ran his fingers through her damp hair and held her through the night like he’d wanted to do every time they were snapped shut into their boxes. He didn’t have to let her go now. They were in this together.


	5. Chapter 5

Even together it was hard, though. Their flip-flopping settled, so it wasn’t every few minutes, but there was usually more than one shift in a day. They never talked about it, but it was hard; either way both of them were clinging to him like he was their salvation, and he’d never claimed to be that. He wasn’t a savior or a good man, but John, Johnna, they were survivors, they’d survived this together and he owed it to them.  
  
So when it was John they sat and smoked together on the couch as they planned. It’d been John to figure it out, about the entomology, the clues connecting together and making a trail that could lead right to him. John had wanted to be a detective before all of this. If that wasn't irony, then Arkin didn't know what was. Now they were hunting down all of the known ones within a two hundred mile radius from the hotel, from the past to the present; if they included just hobbyists it was a sizable list and they were still debating on if they should cut it down to just those with licenses. Even while they planned, John always kept a part of his body against him, their shoulders touching, his fingers on his knee. His foot would be draped over his legs as he sucked in lungfuls of smoke. Arkin didn’t say anything, but put a hand onto his leg when he sometimes saw John looking off or if his fingers started shaking.  
  
Eighteen months without a cigarette and now John was up to a pack a day habit. He hadn’t told John, but he’d looked up his disappearance on the internet, done the math, the research for just how long it had been since he’d been collected, and how his family had been killed. John never once mentioned it, and he figured John didn’t need to know how long it had been. He also figured he could do whatever he wanted to his lungs after everything he’d been through.  
  
When it was Johnna, though, she didn’t want to plan, she wanted snuggles and tea parties, to be told she was a good girl and pretty, and Arkin didn’t have the heart to deny her anything, either. He stopped by a toy store on the way home from the shop one day and got her a little tea set. Her eyes were as big as the fragile little saucers that she carefully set each cup on. The way she played and snuggled and kissed at his cheeks made it feel like she was doing more to heal him than the other way around.  
  
Talia called them almost right away. He wasn't even sure how she got the number. She asked to talk to Johnna, and Johnna was thrilled to have a phone call. She chattered away happily as she played with her tea set and pouted at Arkin when he tried to listen in on the conversation. Finally he was allowed to talk, and he didn't know what to say, really. It felt wrong to talk about things on the phone, but it felt good to hear her voice, so he listened a bit. He listened to her talk about things that had nothing to do with murder and blood and pain and that felt good, he fell asleep on the phone more than once just because of how comfortable her voice made him feel.

 

The calls were a regular thing, nearly every day. John didn’t want to talk, but he wanted to listen. Arkin didn’t miss the way he’d sit up even closer on the couch when Talia spoke to him. Once or twice he’d woken up from falling asleep on the couch and found John asleep beside him, the phone against his ear and he wondered if he’d taken it to listen and fall asleep to, as well. He finally started putting Talia on speaker phone. She didn’t mind.

 

John wore his clothes, stuff that had been left behind from when Arkin had lived there, they shared them. Johnna cried when she realized she was wearing “boy clothes” until he dug out a few things that his ex had left behind. Then she played dress-up, snuck into the makeup that had been left, too, and painted her nails when the paint had chipped, then scrunched her face up and made him do it when she couldn’t get it how she liked.  
  
It slowly became a war between the two of them, though, and Arkin felt like he was trapped in the middle of something he didn’t want to take sides in.  
  
It culminated when John looked in the mirror one day, scowling. That wasn’t unusual, John always scowled, Johnna always smiled, they couldn’t be any more different, but this time he was looking at his hair, the pigtails Johnna had insisted Arkin put it into that morning. He yanked them out and left with a slam to the door. Arkin let him go; he wasn’t about to tell either of them they couldn’t go out, not that Johnna ever wanted to, but they weren’t being held prisoner.  
  
When John came back with his hair neatly cropped, he knew there was going to be a problem.  
  
Johnna wailed, sobbed, pulled at her hair as tears streamed down her cheeks the first time she caught sight of a mirror. It happened again on the next switch, and then again, until Arkin hugged her, told her how pretty she was and explained that girls could have short hair, too, that he would get her some pretty ribbons and bows to put in it. He went out with her, ignored a couple of looks they got over the soft floral dress Johnna had picked out to wear, and he bought her ribbons and bows until she smiled again, wore them proudly all the way home and played with them in her hair for hours. He even put a few on just to make her giggle.  
  
They snuggled on the couch and he fell asleep with his hand curled into those soft, short locks. He’d woken up to John cursing, yanking ribbons away and glaring at him.  
  
“Fuck you.”  
  
He sat up and yawned, rubbing over his face.  
  
“What’s wrong?”  
  
“You and that stupid bitch.”  
  
Arkin stilled in surprise. So far they’d never once mentioned John’s splits before. It was the proverbial elephant in the room, but here was John, spitting out his words with such a hateful bitterness in his voice that it was actually painful to hear. It didn’t sit right with him, not when he was talking about someone that was in essence a part of himself.  
  
“She’s not a stupid bitch, John, she was just… upset. Don’t be upset with her. Fear makes us behave differently.” Because Arkin had a feeling this had little to do with hair or ribbons with John, and everything to do with how Johnna had behaved during those eighteen months he’d been locked away to be used by the Collector, how he behaved.  
  
John glared bitterly at him, lighting up a cigarette. “Don’t. Don’t fucking get used to her, either, because the second I figure out how to get rid of her, she’s fucking gone.  
  
Arkin couldn’t help but stare a moment, and John’s face twisted into something nasty and vulnerable.  
  
“I don’t even fucking care if you like her more than me—”  
  
“John. Don’t think that,” he quickly interrupted. It wasn’t that at all. He couldn’t imagine having one of them without the other now. He knew that wasn’t exactly healthy, but none of them were alright. “I don’t prefer either one of you to the other. I’m not going to play favorites. You survived that… WE survived that together, all three of us. I just, I can’t imagine her being gone. We’re a team.”  
  
That made him pause. He flicked the edge of his cigarette against the ashtray and looked over at him. “We’re a team?” John’s voice was softer, almost hopeful. Arkin put a hand in his hair and pulled his head back against his chest, ran his fingers through his newly cropped hair and kissed the top of it, the first kiss he’d given John.  
  
“We’re a team.”  
  
John sighed, slowly blew out a stream of smoke and nodded, eyes closed. “Ok, we’re a team.”  
  
The fighting lessened after that. John had just needed to know he wasn’t the odd man out.

 

They were all looking better. He was healing. John was putting muscle back onto his body now that he was getting real food beyond the candy and bits of half-spoiled food he got when the Collector had remembered to feed him. He couldn’t see his ribs anymore, and Johnna had pouted, stuck out her lip a little that her body looked different, but Arkin had shown her pictures of female athletes and how nice they looked, and she’d been happy, had taped one up beside the bed, and Arkin was pleased to see John hadn’t taken it down. He wondered if John perhaps liked it for different reasons, he wasn’t even sure of either of their orientations. He certainly wasn’t gay, but fifteen visits with Johnna had showed him how little a body cared about orientation when it needed comfort.  
  
Johnna was there now, sitting on the floor in front of the coffee table with her tea set, nibbling on little pieces of fudge that she’d asked for when he’d wanted to know what treat she’d like from the shop. She smiled while he looked over maps and research. They’d decided to rule out recreational entomologists, it was too confusing for now and if they wanted to go back they could. Now they were making calls, tracking, finding where the best leads were.  
  
Johnna laid her head in his lap and he ruffled her hair, getting a pout from glossy lips. Lip gloss had become the compromise; John hated wiping off lipstick every time he was there, hated the taste of it. He’d come home one day with the little glass tube, seeming embarrassed when he set it on the dresser. Johnna had loved the shininess of it, though, and used it ever since. He was glad they were able to come to this conclusion on their own.   
  
“You’re my favorite daddy, Arkin.” He patted her cheek and sighed. He’d heard it before, and it always made him feel awful, like he was taking advantage of her somehow just by letting her think of him like that, but he didn’t know how to fix it. He was thinking this might be as fixed as either of them got. He didn’t expect it to get better when they killed the fucker. That was just something that needed to be done, an extermination, not a magical cure-all.  
  
“Johnna, that’s not my name anymore, remember?” He reminded her gently. He’d decided Arkin had to go. It would be easier to disappear with a new name. He’d tried to get John to go by his full name, and had gotten a “fuck no.”  
  
She pursed her lips lazily and blew them out into a raspberry. “Barsad is a funny name.”  
  
“John picked it.”  
  
“John is a funny name.”  
  
“Now you’re just being silly.”

  
She giggled and took his fingers, kissing them. “I would have named you something better.”  
  
He poked at her lips. “Oh yeah? Like what?”  
  
She stuck out her tongue, clearly thinking it over. “Josh!”  
  
“Josh, hmm? Josh and John and Johnna? That certainly seems confusing.”  
  
She giggled. “It would end in catastrophe,” she agreed happily. It always surprised him when she used bigger words like that, but then, nothing about John’s intelligence was lost when she was like this. Just earlier she’d peered over his maps and made a face, crossing out one of the names and explaining why statistically it wasn’t possible that that one was ‘daddy.’ Then she’d kissed his cheek and asked for more fudge, since she had helped.  
  
Cheeky little girl.  
  
Or perhaps not so little, because when he’d asked out of morbid curiosity how old she was, he had received one of the most indignant looks he’d ever gotten, and was promptly informed that she was the same age as John, because, obviously, they were in the same body, ‘silly.’  
  
“Why do you act so much younger, then? Hmm?”  
  
She had stilled and looked at him seriously, so seriously it had made his heart skip a beat.  
  
“Because John can’t be young, anymore.”  
  
He had held onto John especially tight that night, had run his fingers through his hair and wished they were all a little more whole.

 

The sex was accidental.


	6. Chapter 6

He hadn’t meant for it to happen with either of them, but then he pretty much gave them whatever they wanted, and this was just another thing.  
  
“Daddy, you never play with me anymore.”  
  
“Sugarplum, I just played racecars with you an hour ago,” he pointed out reasonably. Racecars were Johnna’s newest thing. She’d painted her favorite blue car over with glossy clear nail polish and raced it around the rooms regularly. He was packing up a bag at the moment. This would be the fifth person they’d be exploring as soon as John was here. Johnna was a little too unpredictable to take on these excursions even though she said she wanted to see daddy… which was exactly why she wouldn’t be going. Barsad still worried about the day they did find the fucker, if John would stay out or if they’d start their rapid flip-flopping again from the stress.  
  
“No, not play; play with ME.” She stuck out her bottom lip and Barsad froze, realizing her meaning.  
  
“Johnna… honey—”  
  
“I want to play,” she spoke firmly. “Do you play with John and not me?”  
  
He stared. “What? NO, Johnna, I don’t play with either of you anymore.”  
  
She seemed satisfied with that for a moment then launched herself into his lap. He grunted at the sudden weight while she nuzzled his cheek. “Then play with me.”  
  
“Johnna…” He wasn’t even sure he COULD do what she wanted. His sex drive had seemed to go dormant after everything that had happened. It wasn’t even something on his mind. Even if it hadn’t, he couldn’t do that.   
  
“I know that it hurt you, sugarplum; you can’t want it.”  
  
She worried her lip between her teeth and stared at him with big eyes. She hadn’t talked much about what had happened, but they’d spoken a little bit. He’d held her through it while she talked about how things had hurt her but she’d learned to pretend they didn’t, to ‘be good’ and to like it. He wasn’t exactly a therapist, but he didn’t think she’d talk to anyone else. He had made her promise not to pretend, promised her she was a good girl when she was honest.  
  
“Johnna… be good.” He hated using it on her, he felt like a bastard, but sometimes it was needed.  
  
“It did hurt some,” she blurted out in a hushed whisper, then glanced around as though she was scared of being reprimanded. He cuddled her a little instead, and she sighed, rocked a little in his lap until he took the hint and rocked her back and forth a bit. “I liked it, too, though. I liked when YOU played with me. Can we play again one day? Please, pretty please?”  
  
His stomach sank, but he kept rocking her, finally giving her a hesitant “We’ll see.”  
  
He felt like the worst pervert in the world when he stopped at a store to buy a small bottle of lubricant. He’d long ago realized he couldn’t deny either of them anything, though. If she wanted it, he would have to at least try for her, and there was no way he’d hurt her with it.  
  
He didn’t let either of them see it, kept it tucked away in a drawer and hoped she never thought to ask again, but she was a persistent one when she fixated, and she was fixated. She pouted and reminded him, tried to touch him until he finally broke down, made her promise, swear to him that she would tell him if it hurt.  
  
He did some research, ended up with a browser history he wasn’t exactly proud of, but he hadn’t exactly been experienced with that kind of thing when they were in the collection. He didn’t want his ignorance hurting her now.  
  
It was slow. She lay out on the bed happily, he had her undress instead of just sliding her clothes up like had always happened before. She made a face when she saw the lube, reminded him she wasn’t spoiled, but he wouldn’t have any of it, insisted that she was going to be his spoiled girl no matter what which had her smiling a little and relenting, scooting her thighs apart.  
  
She looked healed but there were scars there, so many, and he hesitated to even touch until she huffed impatiently. He wasn’t turned on, he wasn’t even hard, but he hoped that maybe she’d at least be happy with his fingers. He worked them into her slowly, watched as she sighed and shivered, made a happy noise. At one point her face scrunched up in discomfort and he stilled, waited until she shifted impatiently and promised she was ok.

 

Then she was moaning, rubbing his shoulders as he leaned over her, cheeks flushed and asking so sweetly for it. He felt part relieved, part ashamed when he felt himself getting hard for her. She begged and he couldn’t stand seeing it, so he relented, flipped them so she was settled on his stomach. She squeaked in surprise, but touched over him, making happy sounds and making him groan in response.  
  
“Ok, ok, but we’re going to do it like this, ok? So you can stop if you want, so you don’t have to keep going.”  
  
She bobbed her head eagerly, and he slicked himself knowing she wouldn’t think to do it. It was awkward, she tried to snap down onto him overeagerly, but he made her stay slow even though she wriggled and whined. He wasn’t going to let her hurt herself. She was sinking down slowly, her cheeks flushed and her body shivered, and he shivered with her. It felt good, she was being so good. He was probably going to hell for this, but he’d already been to hell, and he’d found them there, so that was just fine.  
  
She rode him until she was squealing from it, her hands twisted down into the blankets and her hips jerked in rapid little movements. She nearly shrieked when he wrapped his hand around her, bucked into it with a new eagerness and told him how good it felt. He was trying to hold on, he pumped her shaft, tried to think of all of the things that felt good to him, thumbing over her tip as she leaked out slippery onto his fingers.  
  
She couldn’t come, though, no matter how hard they both tried. When she got too close, she got upset, writhed away and made him stop touching. It was frustrating her, making her whole body flushed with need, and he tried to wait for her but he lost finally, tossed his head back and stroked her trembling thighs as he poured out into her. That seemed to satisfy her. She sighed, lay out onto him even though he could feel how hard she was digging against his stomach, kissed his cheek and thanked him before he cleaned them up and she fell asleep on top of him to the feeling of him stroking her cheek.  
  
John was pissed.  
  
Barsad woke up to him shoving at him, scrambling off of his body.  
  
“I hope you enjoyed the fucking whore.”  
  
He felt sudden guilt rising up in his chest. He hadn’t thought to ask John about it. They were so different that, sometimes, even though they shared the same face, it was honestly hard to remember they were the same person and that he should have definitely talked to him about it.  
  
“John—”  
  
“Don’t fucking bother,” he snapped and jerked on a pair of jeans. He was out of the bedroom before Barsad could speak again, and he could hear the slam of the apartment door.

He was back several hours later, looking even angrier. Barsad had thought he’d gone out to drink. It had happened on more than one occasion, he’d done it himself a few times, too, but then he’d gotten paranoid, worried that if the Collector came for him then he wouldn’t be alert enough to stop him.

He was sober, though, storming in and throwing aside Johnna’s toy cars, knocking over the coffee table until Barsad came and wrapped his arms around him. He didn’t do it tight, didn’t want John to feel trapped, but it didn’t matter because once he touched him John collapsed against him and sobbed.  
  
He fell back onto the couch and held onto him, rubbing the warmth back into John’s arms; he’d been so upset he’d forgotten his jacket. He found lipstick smears on his neck and thought perhaps it was from Johnna, but realized that she’d switched to gloss long ago.

“John… what happened?”  
  
He got a few hiccups and shaking sobs before the story poured out of him, about how he had gone to the bar but not to drink.  
  
“I just, I wanted to feel fucking normal, just fucking normal for once. God, she was hot, you know? I just wanted to get off. Do you know how long it’s been? How fucking long since I’ve been able to come?”  
  
Eighteen months, probably, but he wasn’t going to let John know that.  
  
“We were all over each other, she smelled so good and Christ, she felt good, too. We went back to her place, and she was on the table when I fucked her, and she was so hot inside. I just wanted to come so bad. I went at her until it hurt, until it fucking HURT to be inside of her and feel that good, but I just fucking COULDN’T.” He clenched his hands into fists. “I’m not her, I’m not fucking HER, but I can’t come, either. How is that fair!”  
  
He realized he could feel the hot swell of John pressing against his thigh now, and rubbed his back. “Shh, I’m sorry, John.”  
  
“It’s not fucking FAIR. He’s still controlling me! How can he still control my body like that?” It was spoken with another sob. John buried his face against his neck, and he could feel the angry tears there. “What if I can’t ever again? What if I can’t ever fucking feel ok again? What if I can’t ever even COME again?”  
  
He didn’t know what the hell to say to that. He didn’t know how to make that better, so he shushed him lightly and rubbed the back of his neck until he settled more. “I’m sorry about what happened this morning. I should have talked to you.”  
  
He felt the little shrug against his body and smoothed his hair. “I wasn’t… I wasn’t mad at you… No. Ok, I was, I just. I’m not even… I’m not even fucking gay…”  
  
Barsad couldn’t help but snort a little at that. “John… I was married... to a woman.”  
  
They both paused and shared a bitter laugh at that.  
  
Then they kissed desperately, hard, teeth clicking, scraping against lips, wet pants and angry desperation until they were both breathless and clinging to each other, panting, foreheads touching.  
  
“Fuck,” John breathed out against him, and Barsad couldn’t help but give him a little smile, grim as the situation might be. They hugged, just held onto each other for a while. Barsad tousled his hair and gave John the affection he usually reserved for Johnna.  
  
It hadn’t been that he wouldn’t give it to John, it was just that, while John had always felt the need to be against his skin, he hadn’t expressed the need to be coddled, snuggled, not like this. He hadn’t wanted to spook him away from the attentions that he was getting, so he’d tried to keep it as casual as he could even though he felt the same need to dote on John as he did Johnna.

Johnna always wanted attention, demanded it, always in the sweetest ways, but it was a demand all the same and so he hadn’t had trouble understanding her wants, giving them. John, he hadn’t even been sure he’d want to share the bed with him, had almost offered to take the couch the first time it was clear it would be John and not Johnna tucking into the bed. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to do it, though, had just laid stretched out near John and found himself wrapped around John when he woke up in the morning, and had pulled away before John woke. He hadn’t wanted John to feel overprotected, but maybe overprotection was something John needed, too.   
  
So he planted little kisses across his brow, listened to the shivery sigh it got. He slipped a hand under his shirt so he could rub into his spine, Johnna loved that and clearly so did John the way he twisted around a little against him. He asked if it was ok and he got a little “mhm” of affirmation, so he kept it up until John was nearly nuzzling against him, stretched out. After a while, he felt the cock digging into his thigh go softer which was probably a blessing for poor John.  
  
“Feel any better?”   
  
“Mhm.”  
  
“Do you want to go to bed?” That got a head shake, and he knew it was because odds were Talia would call soon and John wanted to hear her voice. So they stayed there for a while longer until John finally sat up and rubbed at his face, looking embarrassed by how puffy it was from his breakdown. He gave his thigh a pat.  
  
“No matter what happens, John, we’re survivors. It’s why we got out of there alive. Don’t forget that.”  
  
“You’re a survivor, Talia’s a survivor,” John rubbed at his eyes more. “I’m just a fucking whore.”  
  
“Hey. Don’t say that,” he spoke more sharply than he had meant to, enough to make John squirm in discomfort.  
  
“Why not? It’s true.” He sighed and lay back down on top of him.  
  
“It’s not at all. She didn’t have a choice, John.”  
  
“I’m not talking about her—Jesus. It wasn’t her at first, ok? She… she came later… She came a lot later.”  
  
He stilled and his hand went back to John’s hair. Johnna talked about it, but John didn’t talk about it ever, so if he wanted to, he would listen.  
  
He was quiet for a little while, and then the story poured out in hushed whispers—the fear, the pain, watching his family, a woman that he loved, die around him. Selina, his girlfriend killed in front of his eyes. His mother had been asphyxiated to death in the booby-trapped car in the garage when she had tried to escape. His father had triggered a gun trying to get himself and John out. John had felt his brains splattering across his face. His breathing got faster, and Barsad stroked his hair as he talked about being in the box, about how scared he was, how he’d always been claustrophobic and had already been nearly out of his mind by the time he’d been wheeled out and laid down on the slab for the Collector to play.  
  
“I just… I could only see his eyes… I could see the way he was looking at me and I just, I knew. I offered, I begged for it, fuck. Fuck, I didn’t want to die. There were bodies beside me, just piled up, like garbage, and I knew I couldn’t die like that. So I really am the whore.”  
  
“You’re not, John. You’re a survivor.”  
  
“I want to be the one who kills him.”  
  
“John…”  
  
“No. I need to.”  
  
“It’s not going to make it better.”  
  
“Fuck. I know that, but it’ll make me feel better. It’ll make me feel like I finally won.”  
  
He couldn’t deny either of them anything.

 

“Ok.” He rubbed his back, and when Talia called he let John hold the phone up to his ear and listened, surprised when Talia somehow seemed to know, and was able to gently pull a little bit of quiet conversation out of him.


	7. Chapter 7

It took all of four days for John to make a switch with Johnna in an incredibly awkward, inopportune time. She’d asked for it each day, and John wasn’t happy about it, but he knew how weak Barsad was when it came to them so he didn’t storm out again. He did get a few spiteful looks, though, when they’d switch and John would still be hard and aching from the play. Barsad didn’t understand what Johnna got out of it, not reaching completion surely had to be frustrating to her, too, but she wiggled and fidgeted impatiently until he gave it to her. He’d give in, let her do what she wanted, not wanting to overstep. She clearly wasn’t worried about the same.

 She was more than willing to guide his hands to her, have him touch her how she liked until she was flushed and sweating, shaking. She wanted to touch his body this time, explore it like she hadn’t been able to before. She liked when she ran her nails down his sides and he squirmed and couldn’t help laughing breathlessly, pushing her hands down finally when she wouldn’t stop.  
  
“Alright, alright, you’re going to make me pee.”  
  
That had her giggling gleefully. She didn’t argue about the lube anymore. She admitted that it made things feel better, and she’d wanted to rub it onto his cock this time. He let her, groaning and feeling guilty over how fast he’d gotten hard this time, how when she’d nuzzled his ear and asked to play he’d twitched in his pants and just nodded, scared at how willing he felt, and went to the bedroom with her.  
  
He didn’t have time to think about it, though, because she was sliding him inside of her with a contented little gasp, cooing about how good he felt, and slowly raising up, lowering herself down with a little cry. He held her hips, not enough to force her to move, he just wanted to hold her for a little bit. He closed his eyes and moaned. His hips rose up a little, he pushed up into her tight heat. She liked that, made a little delighted sound and asked for ‘more, pretty please.’  
  
He moved slowly, let go of her hips and grabbed onto the blankets instead as he moved for her. She shivered and thrust herself down faster. He kept his eyes closed, feeling even guiltier over how much better it felt to be able to move with her. He almost missed it in the heat of the moment, but Johnna’s soft gasp suddenly cut into a lower, stuttered “Oh G-God,” and he froze, having heard it once before.  
  
John’s hands grabbed onto his shoulders and he could hear the shaky panting from above. “Don’t, j-just don’t fucking stop.”  
  
“Joh—”  
  
“DON’T,” he gritted out through clenched teeth. Barsad shuddered when he suddenly started moving again. “J-just don’t fucking talk about it.”  
  
So they didn’t, until John demanded he start moving again and he groaned, low and throaty, a voice Johnna would never make. He moved differently, too, the stilted, uncertain twitches of his hips intermixed with sudden fast rocking when he was overcome by it.  
  
John’s head dropped down in concentration. “Oh God, please, please, I just need to come, I just need to come so bad.” He babbled it again and again, and Barsad ached for him. He tried, he took him into his hand and stroked him fast until John was grunting, looking nearly wild as he snapped his hips, rode him desperately. He didn’t stop when Barsad finally came, John’s rough using of him making his orgasm knock the breath out of him.  
  
“No,no,no!” John whimpered in disappointment.  
  
“Shh, it’s ok, it’s ok.” He rolled them carefully, slid out from him and replaced his cock with his fingers. John took them just as well. He was trying so hard, and his lip was bleeding from how hard he’d sunk his teeth into it on more than one instance of frustration. He tried to work his prostate, he was so slippery inside, and he could feel his own come dripping and wetting his fingers. He pumped his cock, kept going until John finally covered his face with his hands and nearly screamed at the over-stimulation.  
  
“S-stop! It’s too much, stop!” He was hyperventilating when Barsad let him go, gathered him up and rocked him until he was able to breathe again.  
  
“G-God. I just want to, so bad,” he whispered. He was still leaking, still so hard it had to hurt, but Barsad didn’t dare try to touch him again.  
  
“I know. I’m sorry, sugarplum.” The endearment just sort of slipped out. He didn’t know what else to say. John stilled a moment then took hold of his hand, looking determined.  
  
“I’m not going to fucking give up. I’m not going to let him win.”

 

John was awfully persistent about this idea. It was exhausting and frustrating for both of them. They tried different things as the days passed. Barsad sucked him. It was weird, he wasn’t exactly experienced at it, but John seemed to like it well enough. He leaked into his mouth and he slurped at him, mouthed over him and pressed wet kisses against his flushed skin until John was in tears and his jaw hurt too much to keep going.  
  
“Maybe you could… try fucking me?”  
  
It didn’t go much better. They were both nervous about it, neither having been in that position before, but the way John’s eyelids fluttered shut and he let lose a guttural groan when he pressed inside of him for the first time made Barsad determined to bear it. He figured at least he wouldn’t have worry about coming too soon to keep going for John like this. It was strange, it felt weird to be filled up like this, but it wasn’t bad, he’d expected worse. After a little while it became almost hypnotic to feel that steady in and out slide, how deep John got inside of him. It didn’t take him long to moan, to let go of the idea that he wasn’t going to like this no matter what because his cock, trapped between the two of them and starting to leak slowly, was having other ideas.  
  
He apparently didn’t have to do much “bearing” like he thought he would, because he came with a surprised shout not too long after John accidentally worked out how to hit his prostate while he thrust. He’d pushed back towards him at that, panting, cursing and urging John to keep that angle until he came in thick streaks against their bellies. It was surprisingly good. He could see himself letting it happen again if John liked it. He rubbed John’s back and shoulders a little, sighing when he kept going, didn’t slow down at all; if anything Barsad’s climax made him hunt harder for his own. It hurt a little, sent shocks through his overstimulated nerves, but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle.  
  
John, though, he moved faster, grunting and muttering, burying his face in his shoulder. He begged every time he got so close that it was almost there, soft little pleads to just be able to come, begging his body to give up on its conditioning, to let itself topple over into the climax he so desperately wanted so he could feel whole again. He knew the game was over when he felt angry tears against his neck and sharp cursing.  
  
John pulled away with a grunt, and then managed a slightly apologetic look when Barsad winced at the suddenness of it. He was up and swollen—he was always up and swollen anymore because John was determined not to give up and Johnna just liked playing like this. It was, heartbreakingly, more sex that Barsad thought he’d gotten in any one period of his life, and it was sad and funny.  
  
John lit up a cigarette with trembling fingers and smoked until he could calm himself down enough to sleep. Barsad held him, kissed over his cheeks and felt him relax more. He’d learned now that John wanted that sort of comfort just as much as Johnna, he just couldn’t ask for it like she did so Barsad had needed to learn on his own when to give it.  
  
“I fucking hate this.”  
  
“I know.” He stroked his hair.  
  
“You felt fucking amazing, though. I think I’m gay now.”

Barsad laughed and tugged his hair a little, happy with any sign of John’s humor coming out. “Thanks, I think. You’re welcome to try again later.”  
  
Talia showed up the next day.  
  
Johnna was startled at the sudden door knock and Barsad had grabbed his gun, one of them, he’d started his own little collection of them ever since they’d gotten here.  
  
“Barsad, John? It’s me.” Only Talia knew about the name change so far. They’d been talking to her almost daily, Johnna anyway, John was nervous about talking to anyone but him so usually he was quiet. He loved listening to Talia talk, though. He’d finally told him that it calmed down his head. It did the same for Barsad, helped him take care of John and Johnna better.  
  
Johnna squealed, tossing open the door in excitement. Talia was surprised by her but smiled, hugged Johnna gently and complimented her dress which had her grinning and twisting around in it to show it off better. Barsad couldn’t help but see the burn scars on Talia’s hands.  
  
“What are you doing here?”

 She looked at him then scanned the room, saw the maps on the table, and her lips set into a thin line. “I came to tell you… They couldn’t find his body, but it looks like you know.”  
  
“John and Barsad are gonna kill daddy,” Johnna announced matter-of-factly.  
  
“We didn’t want you to have to be involved anymore…”  
  
Talia shook her head. “I want to help. I don’t want this bastard alive.” Her eyes were cold fury, and he saw in them what he saw in John. He realized he never should have left her out of this. They were survivors, all of them, and they had left together. They would end this together.  
  
So Talia came daily, and she planned with them. She told them not to worry about her father, that he didn’t know because he wouldn’t understand, and they all got that. No one had been through what they had, so no one could understand it like they could. They were bound together by that place for better and for worse. With Talia, they had three heads working together, four, really, because sometimes Johnna had an insight that simply couldn’t be denied in its practicality.  
  
Johnna adored Talia, practically preened in front of her, and Talia, bless her, treated her wonderfully. When she came to see them she brought Johnna clothing she didn’t wear anymore, skirts, blouses, some ballet flats; Johnna squealed and demanded that Talia join their tea parties. John was edgy at first around her, smoked more when she was there, but he relaxed quickly enough. When he had a moment of frustration over a dead end, Talia’s hand went to his and he relaxed, took her fingers and rubbed over the scars there for a moment until he was ok. After that, it wasn’t unusual to find him with his head in Talia’s lap, her fingers sifting through his hair as she whispered softly to him. Eventually John started to look at her in a way that made Barsad wonder if he’d really been “made gay” like he’d previously claimed.   
  
He squashed down any brief feelings of strange jealousy over the idea, or over how Johnna asked Talia to paint her nails now, because he felt it, too, that close connection that he hadn’t thought he’d feel with anyone but John and Johnna now. She was one of them. She fell asleep against his shoulder, and he couldn’t help but run his fingers through her hair. He woke up on the couch to find her holding his hand while she jotted down notes in her notebook. She was, of all things, going to college while this was happening. He couldn’t even figure out how she was managing it when he wondered how he was ever going to be able to live in the real world once this was over, and he doubted John ever would be able to, really.  
  
It was faster than he thought it would be. They had a name, they had an address. It had to be him. With some less than legal digging, they found out his past, how his father had carved up his family and set them up for family dinner right in front of him. Maybe the fucker never stood a chance at being normal, but that didn’t make it ok. He’d tortured them all out of their heads, and they weren’t going around killing people, just him.  
  
They prepared. John wanted a gun, Barsad agreed until Talia thought to question and they found out that John had never held a gun in his life. John got a knife, instead, and complained for two days when Talia got one, but she’d gone shooting with Bruce growing up so Barsad trusted her to be able to handle it, and there wasn’t time to teach John right now. Johnna was excited; Barsad wasn’t sure that was good, wasn’t sure she would be able to handle herself around the fucker, and they couldn’t afford the distraction if John did a switch with her. He was worried until he overheard Johnna chattering away with Talia, tucked up in her lap and somehow managing to look like the smaller of the two even though she had quite a few inches on Talia, getting her hair stroked.  
  
“What would you do if you saw your old daddy again, Johnna?” Her tone was gentle, not suspicious, and Johnna just smiled at it and snuggled in closer.

“Say goodbye.”  
  
“Just say goodbye?”  
  
“Mhm, John said he gets to kill him...”  
  
“And that’s ok?”  
  
She hummed for a few moments then pushed her lips into a pout. “No.”  
  
That had made Talia’s hand still in her hair, but when Johnna made a discontented noise she continued.  
  
“No?”  
  
“Uh-uh. We should get to take turns, all of us. It’s nice to share.”   
  
“Share?”  
  
Johnna smiled and kissed Talia’s nose. “I wanna cut him up into pieces, too.”  
  
He stopped worrying about Johnna.


	8. Chapter 8

They went during the day. Nighttime was his time. They waited until it was John, he wasn’t worried about Johnna now, but they knew that John needed this so much more than she did. There were so many traps, almost imperceptible, set up around the house. It looked like such a normal house, but they knew his tricks. John had discovered the needles carefully tipped up in the grass surrounding the property, dripping with God only knew what sort of drugs. Talia had pointed out the nearly invisible razor wire that ran across all of the windows. Barsad, with more than a little luck and some calm deep breaths, had been able to pick the backdoor and prevent the packet of explosives tucked into it from blowing his hands off while he worked.  
  
“Jesus Christ. It looks fucking normal in here.” John looked around, and Talia placed a hand on his shoulder to quiet him. He was looking edgy, beads of sweat at his temples while he held onto his knife with a grip that could have cracked bone.  
  
“Shh. Come.” They waited, checked for traps, it was surprisingly innocuous inside, though. There were hints, little things that seemed just a little odd to see inside of a house, not quite right, a slightly off painting on the wall, a creepy figure on the table, but it was mostly just a regular house. They waited until they heard the car in the driveway. They were ready, set up. They could be just as patient as he was. They were the ones setting the traps now.  
  
They listened to him come in, not knowing they’d turned his own lair against him. Barsad smiled tightly at how he stalked down the stairs when John flicked the radio to blare music. He couldn’t see his face when he stepped into the living area and saw the box they had picked out especially for him, Johnna having decorated it with a few sparkly stickers of her choosing, but Talia and John could see it and they looked grimly satisfied by it, Talia’s gun trained on him while Barsad held his own up and ordered him to turn around and face him.  
  
“Are you going to kill me?” His eyes—unmasked but still glossier, darker, and blacker than any eyes had a right to be—flicked between them all. They looked like a fucking bug’s.  
  
John growled low in his throat and the Collector’s gaze flicked over to him, a smile twisted onto his lips. He licked over them slowly.  
  
“There’s daddy’s girl.”  
  
The growl turned into a feral snarl and John lunged at him. Talia grabbed him and whispered fiercely into his ear, reminding him that they wanted him alive for now.  
  
Barsad slammed his foot into the fucker’s chest, kicked him and shouted until he flew into the box. Talia let John go, let him scream expletives and slam the lid of the chest down again and again until it snapped up shut. He was near hyperventilating, eyes wet and looking wild. He sat down heavily on the closed chest and scrubbed his hands over his face. His posture changed and Johnna sat up a little more before she smiled and slid down from the box gracefully, poked her fingers playfully at the keyhole in the box and cooed with excitement.  
  
“Bye-bye, daddy.”

 

“Friends share.” Johnna reminded them in a sing-song little chirp as they wheeled him out of the deceptive house and into his own truck.  
  
So they shared. They took turns, because that’s what friends did.  
  
Talia’s father had a large amount of property. No one was going to see them in the little shed hidden away in a stretch of trees. They’d cleaned it out and set it up special for the occasion.  
  
Barsad broke every bone in his body; started with his toes, his fingers, worked his way up. Each sick little snap felt good. He thought of everything he’d had to do to survive, every single body he’d seen cut down in front of him. Eventually, he ran out of bones.  
  
Talia burned his skin, torched his flesh from his bones. She traced a scalpel across his ears, slow, methodical cuts until they fell to the ground and blood dripped off the table they’d taped him down to.  
  
John… They had to hold him back, keep him from ending it too soon, but they let him use his knife, let him use it to cut him however he wanted as long as Talia could cauterize the wound afterward to keep the blood loss down.  
  
Johnna begged to join in until she got to snip off the pieces she wanted to play with.  
  
They made it last for days. It wasn’t pretty, it wasn’t healthy, it wasn’t sane, and not one of them gave a fuck. When he finally looked as inhuman as he truly was inside, they knew it was done.  
  
“Go ahead, John.” He shook his shoulder gently from the corner of the shed where he’d been resting, curled up in a pile of gore. The room reeked, thick with the scent of rot and blood. They were all tired, all filthy, all in need of something to eat, but John and Johnna were especially wearing thin. They’d been flip-flopping constantly, the strain wearing them down, but he wasn’t going to take this from John. “It’s time, sugarplum.”  
  
He groaned and stood sleepily, getting a light, affectionate pat on the cheek from Talia before she slid his knife back into his hands. “For all of us, John.”  
  
There didn’t seem to be much point in drawing it out. John dragged the knife slowly up the mangled, blistered black flesh; it bubbled and oozed out under the slice created. Barsad wondered if the fucker was relieved it was going to be over. They wouldn’t be able to see it in his eyes, they’d been discarded into the corner of the room days ago.

  
John plunged the blade down. It was near silent, only the slick sound of flesh parting, a slow exhale, and it was done.  
  
They stood there, none of them spoke for a long time until they ended up in each other’s arms, clinging tight to blood-slicked flesh, dirty hands, quiet tears, and shaking sobs that were never spoken of. It was done, but they all knew it hadn’t fixed anything. They buried the body, stripped naked and hosed off, shivering and cold in the night air. John fell asleep with his head in his lap the moment they got into the van.  
  
“Barsad.” Talia glanced at them from the rear-view mirror as she drove. “Come home with me.”  
  
“Ok.”  
  
She seemed surprised it was so easy, but he couldn’t imagine her not being with them, and he knew John would agree.  
  
“You do not even wish to know what my father would say?”  
  
He watched her in the mirror. “Your father knows exactly where you were,” he realized.  
  
She smiled, dark, like John’s, and tilted her head slightly in acknowledgement. “He knows he can’t protect me anymore. He never could, really, but he can understand revenge; he wanted it for me, too.”  
  
He shook his head. He should have known that, that while Mr. Al Ghul wouldn’t want her in danger, he would want that monster dead by any means possible, and that Talia was strong enough to do it.  
  
“He trusted me to keep you safe, then?”  
  
“You got me out alive.”  
  
“We all got each other out alive.”  
  
“Semantics. He is looking for someone to replace Bruce. I assume you will meet his approval.”  
  
Barsad couldn’t help but laugh a little at that, stroking John’s hair. “What about him?”  
  
“John and Johnna will always have a home with us,” she promised and Barsad believed it.

 

They ended up in Talia’s bed, scrubbed clean of their deeds; Johnna curled up, looking angelic in one of Talia’s nightshirts. He smiled at how she lovingly wrapped up around Talia, like she couldn’t get enough affection from her. He hesitated, but Talia beckoned him in with them, and Johnna felt right and warm wrapped up between the both of them, kissing them both goodnight on the cheek while they were all tucked under enough blankets to forget the cold they’d left behind in the shed. It was comfortable, it was safe. They all slept through the night, through the morning, through the afternoon.  
  
When he woke, it was to John rubbing hard against his leg, panting softly and wrapped up so tightly around him he could barely breathe.  
  
“Please, please,” he whispered. “I think I can, now, just… can we?”  
  
He glanced at Talia, still asleep. She’d understand. She knew most of the situation. It had been too obvious with poor John walking around half of the time sporting a hard on he couldn’t get rid of. She sympathized, she’d get it.  
  
Except John still couldn’t. They tried, but killing the Collector wasn’t some magic fix. Talia woke, more than a little surprised at John squirming around while Barsad was ducked under the covers, sucking and slurping over him, trying to coax out John’s orgasm, curling his tongue around him. He was getting better at sucking cock than he liked to think about.  
  
“O-oh, Jesus, fuck, s-sorry, Talia,” John muttered out, clearly sounding embarrassed, and Barsad had stilled under the blankets.  
  
There was a long beat.  
  
“I would ask what you want for breakfast, but Barsad seems to have found his.”  
  
They all laughed. It was a mood killer, but they’d been about to give up anyway. John sat up and groaned uncomfortably. Barsad winced in sympathy; he couldn’t even imagine the case of blue balls John had to have, how it must be a constant ache.  
  
“Fuck. I really thought… Just, with him gone.”  
  
Talia hugged him. “You will.” Her voice was firm, no nonsense, the kind of authority that was beyond her years but seemed right coming from her. “I’ll do it myself if I have to.”  
  
“Fuck,” John groaned, and he laughed more. “Don’t even joke.”  
  
“I’m not.”  
  
John didn’t really have a response for that, and Barsad resisted teasing him about how his eyes automatically flicked to Talia’s chest contemplatively. Talia did the teasing for him, then gave him another hug when he looked embarrassed, stroking his hair.  
  
“We’re all in this together. We escaped together, we killed together, and we will heal together. If that means this, too, then it does.”  
  
John hesitated a moment, then he kissed her. When Talia returned it, tenderly and intently, John sagged against her body and Barsad rubbed his spine, watched them. They waited for him to be able to settle his body and they went to breakfast.  
  
Talia shared a kiss with him when he poured her some milk. It made him pause, not because it was awkward, but because it seemed so natural. He kissed her back, slowly explored her mouth until he had to pull back and laugh lightly when he heard Johnna clapping happily.  
  
He ruffled her hair, and when Johnna demanded a kiss from them both Talia teased her, told her she was ‘not into girls,’ and made her pout until she laughed and kissed her anyway.  
  
After that, it wasn’t that anything had changed, except everything had.  
  
They got more comfortable, they settled, they healed, not without scars, but they weren’t raw and open anymore, they were slowly stitching shut. The months passed and they became more stable. He worked for Mr. Al Ghul, and it was absolutely never mentioned that John and Barsad had their own rooms that they never used, that they spent every night wrapped with Talia beside or between them. Mr. Al Ghul was a good man, a smart man; he drank a lot, but they all had their ways of coping, and he treated John kindly. Barsad had even found Johnna inside his study one day, sitting on the rug beside him and happily reading one of the thick books from his shelves, leaning against his leg and humming. That was what had made Barsad decide that he was really a good man, one that he was glad to work for.

 

That was when it happened, not when it was as pressured, not after he was gone, but when they were settled, weren’t forcing it so hard. When they were helping each other heal. When they were having sex just to be able to touch one another, not just to try and get John off. When he had John laid out on his back, working into him with slow plunges that had them both shuddering, whispering gently against his ear. He’d started encouraging him now, it had seemed to help, had worked him up faster, and Barsad had hoped it would help him go faster before his body got too overstimulated to go on.  
  
Talia ran her fingers through John’s hair. She was bare and stretched out beside them, her lips pressed to John’s other ear, looking sleepy but murmuring her own encouragements. She had ridden John to her own climax earlier, and now she reached between them, her hand joining theirs as the three of them took turns working them. John was leaking, making the most heartbreaking sounds of want, of need, as he thrust into him.    
  
“You can do it, John…” He cupped his balls gently, stroking the sensitive skin there.  
  
“F-fuck, don’t think I can,” John admitted, then his breath caught when Talia’s thumb run in a slow circle along his tip, teasing at the precome leaking from him, encouraging more.  
  
“Then do not try to press too hard, remember? Try to enjoy it for what it is, relax.” She kissed his ear. “If you try too hard, you will psyche yourself out.”  
  
“G-God, trying. It’s just, it’s so hard.” He whimpered, and she kissed him in sympathy.  
  
“Shh, I know. Deep breaths.”  
  
He listened as much as he could, sucking in little breaths, and Barsad licked a stripe up behind the back of his ear, sucked at the hollow there. “Want me to stop?” He could, he could finish on his own, but didn’t want to give up unless John wanted to.  
  
“J-Just a few more minutes… G-God, you feel so good even when I can’t.” John shuddered under him. He ran his hand up his belly, feeling the slickness of his skin from sweat.  
  
“Alright, whatever you want, sugarplum. Deep breaths, you can do this.”  
  
“I can’t. I don’t think I can.” John shook his head, his breath breaking down into sharper gasps for air.  
  
“Shh, you can. I know you can do this for us,” he encouraged, watched the frustrated tears starting to wet John’s eyes. He let go of his cock, knowing Talia would keep going, took hold of his hips with both hands and drove into him faster, watched him writhe for them. He tried to work against his prostate, felt his own climax fast approaching but grit his teeth, biting back the urge to just lose himself inside of John.

 

John keened, shook under them. It seemed different, even more desperate than usual. It drove Barsad a little wild, made him suck a kiss onto John’s throat, bite there gently.  
  
“Come on John, come on,” he urged.  
  
“Can’t, can’t, can’t,” John chanted, and he sounded so disappointed, devastated.  
  
“You can, you can do this just for us, for me and Barsad, John. You’re our good boy, aren’t you?” Talia asked.  
  
John would forever deny that it was the words, but his eyes became near frantic at them, and Barsad took it as a sign, latched onto it, kissed fervently at John’s ear. “That’s right, you are, aren’t you, John? You’re our good boy. And you’re going to come for us, right now.” It was a growled out order that he didn’t even know he had inside of him, but it broke something inside of John, something that actually needed breaking.  
  
“F-fuck!” John screamed, bucked wildly as he finally, finally was able to push over the edge, his come gushing out of him in thick, hot pulses. His mouth stayed open and his back bowed. He looked in near agony from it, all of that pent-up ache finally rushing out of him. Barsad barely felt his own in comparison, too wrapped up in the joy of finally seeming John reach his. Talia pumped him still, encouraging him to give it all to them. He was a mess of come after, so much smeared across his belly as his cock gave a final twitch and he at last collapsed back onto the bed, sides heaving as he sucked in lungfuls of air.

  
They ignored the mess, willing to let themselves wake up stuck together. They hugged him tightly to them and he took turns burying his face against them, hiding tears of relief, of exhaustion.  
  
“You did so good, John.” He stroked his hair and got an elated laugh.  
  
“Never thought I’d get congratulations for jizzing.”  
  
“We could make you a card for it later, if you’d like,” Barsad teased, and John groaned.  
  
“Shh… Johnna will get ideas.”  
  
They chuckled and they held John against them more, shared kisses between all of them. In the grand scheme of things maybe it was small, but it was one of the biggest achievements they could have had together, and they all felt it. When they laid down sticky and curled up and fingers laced, they knew they had a long road to go, that they weren’t ever going to be anything close to normal, but when John slept he smiled, when Talia kissed them both she looked content, when Barsad closed his eyes he saw both of them and he knew he had survived.  
  
They had all survived.  
  
Together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shameless plug- http://relevantlyirreverent.tumblr.com/


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